Chandler: Bring down Confederate flag, but don’t whitewash history

Remove the Confederate battle flag from State House grounds because it is not a sovereign flag, not because it is one of many controversial Southern relics and honors. Do not place this issue in the same category as the wave of change many desire in the whitewashing of important historical legacies.

Removing or altering monuments, renaming roads and public buildings and other attempts to erase visible Southern memorials from our historical consciousness, in an attempt to correct what many see as errors of the past, inevitably will lead to our doing the same for all regions, for there is no region beyond scrutiny. Ultimately, we will have none but those we choose to honor today, and there will be endless, costly replacements, all having to meet the criteria of current thinking. Let us not whitewash our history.

Each era is a snapshot in time, exhibiting its own unique world view, biases and insights. Allowing these to stand through the ages is not an acceptance of what those who went before us embraced. It is an acknowledgement that they left a mark on the rich fabric of our nation that should be studied and learned from, not necessarily condoned.

The slippery slope of whitewashing our history would lead us into a trap of political correctness that would have no reasonable end.

We do not live under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of Ben Tillman, John C. Calhoun and Wade Hampton, controversial figures in our state’s history, as we do under the U.S. and S.C. flags. We must guard against imposing our current views on the past.

Let us remember our history and have it in our faces, continually. Let us talk about and debate it, the whole story. Let us keep vivid these reminders of our past, the good, the bad and the ugly. While we are at it, there is certainly nothing wrong with creating new monuments, naming new public buildings and establishing what will be new relics for future generations.

I am a retired teacher of American history in the public schools of South Carolina, and this is the essence of all that I attempted to convey in my 41-year teaching career.

The flag should come down, but our history must not be whitewashed.

Surfside Beach

This story was originally published June 25, 2015 at 7:38 PM with the headline "Chandler: Bring down Confederate flag, but don’t whitewash history."